Wireless communication networks provide communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, and broadcast for mobile devices and data terminals. The wireless communication network may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of user mobile devices. User equipment (e.g., a user mobile device) communicates with an external network through a base station via downlink and optionally an uplink.
To conserve power at battery-powered mobile devices while not actively communicating with the external network, mobile devices may operate in an idle state to only listen to paging messages from the external network that indicate information about incoming calls, system changes, and/or emergencies notifications. Mobile devices may further enable discontinuous reception (DRX) while in the idle state to further reduce battery power consumption. When DRX is enabled, a transceiver at the mobile device is turned off to conserve battery power and only periodically turns on to receive available data packets from the network. However, even when DRX is enabled, any downstream packets sent to the mobile device will cause the mobile device to wake up and operate in a full power mode by connecting to the external network. Periodical traffic patterns may therefore cause the mobile device to consume battery power by continuously operating in the full power mode or quickly cycling between idle and connected states.